Higher-Order Deniability
Sam Berstler
MIT Philosophy
Download slides: www.samberstler.com
Email me: berstler@mit.edu
tl;dr
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We speak some ways, and not others, because we want to retain deniability for what we mean.
I’m going to complicate the dominant paradigm for thinking about deniability.
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I’m sure whatever happened wasn’t a big deal. And if anything ever did happen, you just…do what you have to do to make yourself feel better about it. I have this trainer in the city. Lawrence. He’s so handsome. He has blonde hair and these, like, big, blue eyes. He’s really funny too. I spend more time with him than Cameron sometimes. ‘Cause he’s so busy at work. Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
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Deniability as control
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The speaker aims to create deniability for her communicative act G in order to drive down the risks she undertakes in G-ing.
Deniability as control
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The speaker aims to create deniability for her communicative act G in order to drive down the risk to her own interests that she undertakes in G-ing.
Deniability as control
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Deniability as control
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Deniability as control
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Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
Does Daphne mean that Lawrence is the father? I suspect so, but I’m unsure!
Daphne intends Harper to merely suspect that Daphne intends for Harper to believe that Lawrence is the father and so merely suspect that Lawrence is the father.
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The denier intends to constrain her addressee, by making some of the addressee’s responses…
Rationally impermissible
Epistemically impermissible
…under a trigger condition
Pinker 2007; Pinker, Nowak, and Lee 2008; Lee and Pinker 2010
Conversationally impermissible
Camp 2018; Zakkou and Dinges 2023
Berstler 2019; Zakkou and Dinges 2023
Camp 2018
This is a fundamentally non-cooperative strategy.
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It also does not challenge the assumption that if a speaker is cooperative, she ought to make clear what she means.
This is a fundamentally non-cooperative strategy.
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Can you drive me to the airport?
Uhhhhhhhhh
How uncouth!
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*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
Of course I shall drive to the airport, madam!
What a well-bred lady!
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*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
Of course I shall drive to the airport, fine lady!
What a well-bred lady!
In many language communities, speakers communicate indirectly in order to be…
(i) polite
(ii) discrete
(iii) considerate
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What a boring movie! (English)
Indirect speech act: Let’s leave.
I need some more nails to finish up this rabbit hutch. (English)
Indirect speech act: Buy me some nails when you go into town.
My house isn’t far. (Malagasy)
Indirect speech act: Come with me.
Oh sir, a headache…. (Tamil)
Indirect speech: Give me an aspirin.
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The claim is not that an indirect speech act is always or even generally more polite than its direct counterpart. We also know that cultures’ tolerance and requirement for polite indirection varies.
Modern Hebrew: low
English: mid
Tamil, Japanese: high
I see that the dishwasher hasn’t been emptied.
Indirect speech act: Empty the dishwasher!
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Objection. Why would the speaker, in leaving herself an “out,” express regard for the other person’s interests?
.
Deniability as control
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Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
Does Daphne mean that Lawrence is the father? I suspect so, but I’m unsure!
Harper has an interest in knowing Daphne’s communicative intentions. Daphne trades pragmatic clarity off against her own risk management.
She promotes her interests at Harper’s express.
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*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
Of course I shall drive to the airport, madam!
Politeness hypothesis:
If Charles says no, Gertrude can avoid embarrassment by insisting, “I didn’t mean to imply I wanted a ride!”
Mystery:
Why should this help Charles out? If anything, Charles should find Gertrude’s choice obnoxious.
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Hypothesis. The polite risk manager does promote her interlocutor’s interests, by enabling her interlocutor to ignore her communicative message.
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I am asking for a ride
I suspects that Gertrude wants me to drive her to the airport.
Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles suspects that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude knows that Charles suspects that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows (suspects) that Gertrude knows that Charles knows that Gertrude is asking for a ride.
*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
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I am asking for a ride
I suspects that Gertrude wants me to drive her to the airport.
Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles suspects that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude knows that Charles suspects that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows (suspects) that Gertrude knows that Charles knows that Gertrude is asking for a ride.
*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
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Charles knows that:
If he doesn’t offer to drive her to the
airport, Gertrude will know that he
doesn’t want to help her.
Because if he did, he would have either clarified what Gertrude wanted or just offered.
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Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles suspects that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude knows that Charles suspects that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows (suspects) that Gertrude knows that Charles knows that Gertrude is asking for a ride.
Why are we assuming this?
*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
I am asking for a ride
I suspects that Gertrude is asking me to drive her.
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I am asking for a ride
I suspects that Gertrude is asking me to drive her.
Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Gertrude doesn’t know whether Charles knows that she’s asking for a ride.
*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
Charles suspects that Gertrude is asking this.
Charles knows that Gertrude doesn’t know whether Charles know that she’s asking him for a ride.
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I am asking for a ride
I suspect that Gertrude is asking me to drive her.
Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude doesn’t know whether Charles knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows that Gertrude doesn’t know whether Charles know that she’s asking him for a ride.
*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
Does know realize that I’ve figured this out? No.
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A speaker S intends to create higher-order deniability for her act of G-ing iff she intends:
i. that her addressee A know that S intended to G.
ii. that S not know whether (i), and
iii. that A know (ii).
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This empowers Charles to ignore it. Why? Because Charles if acts as if he doesn’t understand Gertrude, Gertrude cannot rule out either of these hypotheses:
i. Charles didn’t understand me.
ii. Charles doesn’t want to drive me to the airport.
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Jerry texts Annie at 8 pm on a Friday asking if she wants to have coffee at 10 pm.
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Jerry texts Annie at 8 pm on a Friday asking if she wants to have coffee at 10 pm.
If Annie replies the next morning that, “Sorry! Just saw this!” Jerry won’t know whether she’s telling the truth.
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Jerry texts Annie at 8 pm on a Friday asking if she wants to have coffee at 10 pm.
If Jerry intends to create higher-order deniability for himself by sending the text at 8 pm, then he acts in order to empower Anna to do this.
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Paradigmatically, a higher-order deniers will not directly seek to confirm whether her interlocutor “got” the message. She wants to enable her interlocutor to decide for herself whether to introduce the message into the conversation.
chooses to ignore
chooses to make
common ground the next day
Why?
(e.g.) My interlocutor might think I created it accidentally.
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We often intend to create higher-order deniability not just to be polite but to express or communicate politeness. But note that just in creating higher-order deniability, I don’t communicate an other-regarding sentiment.
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Corollary: speakers primarily using HOD for its expressive function must intend to have meta-deniability.
[The story with first-order deniability is more complicated.]
A speaker intends to have meta-deniability for act of G-ing iff:
(i) she intends to have deniability for G-ing and
(ii) she intends for her interlocutor to recognize (i).
It’s common knowledge that…
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if G pulls the red lever, she maximizes her chance that C understands what she meant.
if G pulls the black lever, she increases her chance that C doesn’t understand what she meant but does enable C to decline to offer her a ride without revealing that he has so declined…
It’s common knowledge that…
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if G pulls the red lever, she maximizes her chance that C understands what she meant.
if G pulls the black lever, she increases her chance that C doesn’t understand what she meant but does enable C to decline to offer her a ride without revealing that he has so declined…
….So when G pulls the black lever, it’s common knowledge that she’s trading off her interests for Charles’.
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Some variations
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A speaker S intends to create mixed deniability for her act of G-ing iff she intends:
i. that her addressee A to suspect that S intended to G.
ii. that S not know whether (i), and
iii. that A know (ii).
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Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
When Daphne hands Harper the phone, she pointedly turns her body away from Harper and averts her eyes. Harper can see that Daphne has done this.
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Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
When Daphne hands Harper the phone, she pointedly turns her body away from Harper and averts her eyes. Harper can see that Daphne has done this.
Daphne can’t read Harper’s facial expression.
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Though speakers often create higher-order deniability to express polite regard for their addressees, they can also create it for purely strategic reasons.
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Clive has been discussing his failing grade with his professor. When the professor, Larry, isn’t looking, a student, Clive, leaves an envelope of cash on the professor’s desk in a non-obvious spot.
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What’s Clive’s plan?
Clive wants to take advantage of the possibility that:
as an authority figure, Larry is willing to ignore Clive’s bribe…but only if Clive doesn’t know that Larry is letting him get away with it.
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Pinker 2007; Pinker, Nowak, and Lee 2008; Lee and Pinker 2010
A speaker S may create first-order deniability when she intends:
(i) that her addressee knows that she G-ed but,
(ii) that she and her addressee not to have common knowledge that she
G-ed.
Why?
She intends to trigger a norm like, “If it’s not common knowledge that p, then you can’t act as if p (for some relevant purposes).”
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Higher-Order Deniability
| First-order deniability | Higher-order deniability |
Characterization | Prevents the addressee from taking action disfavorable to speaker | Enables the addressee to take action favorable to the hearer |
Example | Harper can’t convince a divorce court that Daphne confessed her adultery. | Harper can ignore Daphne’s revelation without revealing that she’s intentionally ignoring it. |
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What’s all the fuss about?�Why won’t Charles tell Gertrude “no”?�Why won’t Harper just tell Daphne, “I don’t want to talk about this”?
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Goffman’s hypothesis
Well-socialized speakers cooperate in maintaining each others’ face.
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A face is more than persona or social status.
Face is situation-specific.
I have a face f in a situation s only if
self-assignment: I presuppose in s that
I have f
ratification: my interactants presuppose
in s that I have f
Face determines and explains how we treat each other in the interaction and how others (in part) normatively judge our interaction.
I have a massive prudential interest in my face.
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We all jointly know far more about each other than we’d all like to admit into the interaction. Given that we can’t use joint knowledge about ourselves in order to guide our joint actions, what should we use?
Answer: face, or the ”public” part of the self.
Sam’s hypothesis*
*riffing on David Velleman and Thomas Nagel
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I “lose” face when…
(i) you and I attend to information that is
inconsistent with my face,
(ii) I presuppose that you fail to ratify, or
(iii) you presuppose that I have a face
that I have not self-ascribed.
Why? I reveal the “gap” between my public persona and real self.
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A good interactant ensures that her partner saves her face.
So if I have the face of a good interactant, and if I fail to save your face, I lose face too.
Note that even in antagonistic contexts, I want, for my own sake, to have the face of a good interactant.
As part of “facework,” we manipulate the social scenario to offset the risk of face loss both to ourselves and to others. Failing to do this is a mark of disrespect, incompetence, or both.��Facework is an implicitly learned skill that we implicitly esteem.�
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Often in conversation, I risk creating a situation in which I force you to choose between:
Choice A. Causing me to lose face, and so
causing yourself to lose face
Choice B. Going along with what I want
in the interaction, even though you
otherwise would not have wanted to do so.
Good interactants avoid creating these scenarios.
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Though the speaker has a stake in maintaining her own face, she could have “left all the face-saving work” up to her interlocutor.
But the speaker helps out—again, at the expense of her own interest in pragmatic clarity.
This form of deniability is other-regarding and cooperative.
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So we engage in compensatory action…
Motive masking strategy | Example |
Suggest a face-saving reason to decline | “Would you like to co-teach next semester? Of course I know that you might have already told the chair your preferences!” |
Lengthen time to expected reply | “Could you let me know tomorrow whether you’re able to come to dinner?” |
Avoid the act in bad contexts | “I have nothing to do Saturday night. It’s great!’ Don’t immediately ask: “Do you want to come to a dinner part at my house Saturday night?” |
Create higher-order deniability | “Wanna see the pic?” |
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Failing to offer a ride threatens Gertrude’s face as someone worthy of asking for a ride
Refusing to take up Daphne’s discussion point threatens Daphne’s face as an intimate of Harper
Failing to discipline the student threatens Larry’s face as a man of integrity
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Both what causes us to lose face and recognizable strategies for mitigating face threat are contextually and culturally sensitive (although there are some high-level generalizations).
This may explain why indirect speech is only polite in some language groups and, even then, in only some contexts.
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A traditional idea. Meaning is distinct from mere intentional communication because meaning is transparent, overt, or manifest in a special way.
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For complicated reasons, we know that the traditional Grice analysis is insufficient for capturing the target notion of transparency.
Grice’s famous analysis
A speaker S means that p to an addressee A in uttering U iff in uttering U,
(i) S intends that A to believe that p
(ii) S intends that A to recognize (i), and
(iii) S intends for A to believe that p on the basis of so recognizing (i).
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I want Eliot to think that he’s a better read of me than me, so that he’ll let his guard down and I can outfox him. When Eliot says, “Do you like Arc?” I say, “Oh yes!” but do with a subtle tell that I’m speaking “insincerely.” Eliot recognizes that my tell is intentional and so phony. So Eliot infers that I don’t like Arc on the basis of recognizing my intention that Eliot believe that I don’t like him. Eliot thinks he’s just outsmarted me, so Eliot doesn’t recognize that I also wanted him to recognize that my tell was phony! I’ve outsmarted him!
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I want Eliot to think that he’s a better read of me than me, so that he’ll let his guard down and I can outfox him. When Eliot says, “Do you like Arc?” I say, “Oh yes!” but do with a subtle tell that I’m speaking “insincerely.” Eliot recognizes that my tell is intentional and so phony. So Eliot infers that I don’t like Arc on the basis of recognizing my intention that Eliot believe that I don’t like him. Eliot thinks he’s just outsmarted me, so Eliot doesn’t recognize that I also wanted him to recognize that my tell was phony! I’ve outsmarted him!
The intuition you’re supposed to have:
This isn’t meaning.
In what sense is meaning transparent?
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Require the speaker to have an infinite number of intentions
Require the speaker to aim to make her intentions epistemically public
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One popular strategy for analyzing publicity
A speaker S means that p to an addressee A only if S intends for it to become common knowledge between S and A that she means that p.
Schiffer (1972), Stalnaker (2002, 2014)
S and A jointly know that p iff
S and A know that p,
know that they know that p,
know that they know that they know that p….
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Problem 1.
In some situations, S knows that it’s impossible S to achieve common ground with A.
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Problem 2.
In some situations, S is indifferent to whether it becomes common knowledge with A that she meant that p.
I shout at a guy in the ocean, “Hey, watch out for that shark!”
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Adjusting the approach
A speaker S means that p to an addressee A only if S does not intend for all of S’s communicative intentions not to become common knowledge between S and A.
Compare to Grice’s strategy (Grice 1989, endorsed Neale 1991): “A speaker doesn’t have any hidden intentions.”
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Adjusting the approach
A [cooperative?] speaker S means that p to an addressee A only if S does not intend for all of S’s communicative intentions not to become common knowledge between S and A.
Compare to Grice’s strategy (Grice 1989, endorsed Neale 1991): “A speaker doesn’t have any hidden intentions.”
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Problem 3.
Higher-order deniers intend for it not to become common knowledge that they are performing thus-and-such communicative act. But they still seem capable of meaning their communicative acts. They are also cooperative.
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The transparency of meaning, even under cooperative conditions, does not consist in its aiming at epistemic publicity.
Face-saving strategies directly bear on foundational questions in the theory of meaning.
Thank you!
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